The point about the lawyers essentially awarding themselves business, and that informing their advice.

Also I do find it somewhat credible that he drank his own cool-aid.

Important disclaimer: I would never associate "price of token goes up" with "value was created". The only way to create wealth (sustainably) is to create value in the world & capture some %age of that value.

However, I do somewhat believe that he may have thought the many-year run of on-paper profits was more material than it actually was. In the same way that many gamblers believe they have a system, etc.